Are we in a golden age for 'Shedanomics'?
Discussion
As we all know, Bangernomics is buying a car as cheaply as possible, spending the minimum on it to keep it running, then weighing it in when it breaks and moving on. Although hugely entertaining in its own way this really isn't for everyone. For example, a mk4 Fiesta Zetec may be a great car, but turning up at a meeting in something with thin air and iron oxide for wheel arches and mis-matched hubcaps doesn't really work if you're the marketing manager for a large company trying to land a new contract.
Everyone on here is familiar with SOTW, so by process of extrapolation I have decided that 'Shedanomics' is spending about £1k on something presentable and enjoyable, to be run carefully, but not to the extent that you leave the oil in the sump for 30k miles and treat gaffer tape as an acceptable substitute for bodywork.
The reason for this post is that I've just spent a fraction over £1k on a Honda CRV as my annual 'Jap 4x4 to get me through the snow' and it's absolutely brilliant. Everything works, it has FSH, 100k miles, last owner for 8 years, plenty of T&T and most importantly, to a non car person it looks very smart and worth a lot more than I paid. Last year I bought a Forrester and that was the same and a quick browse through the classifieds will turn up dozens of suitable candidates - E39 5 series, VW Passats, Audi A4s, Merc C class, Subaru Legacies and loads of older stuff too.
In the past cheap cars have had carburettors, no aircon, rust and assorted design faults as well as a tendency not to start at that vital moment when you really need them to. Now though, there's tonnes of late '90s stuff with all the important gadgets and toys which would make a suitable daily driver for almost anyone.
So why is this a golden age? Well as time progresses these late '90s and early '00s cars will gradually leave the roads and we will be left with mid to late '00s cars in this price bracket. That means CO2 based tax (the wrong side of £450 a year for a lot of stuff, especially if you want an auto) and massive complexity. Cars now have DPFs, DMFs, various other TLAs as well as injectors, pumps and turbos on what will become the ubiquitous diesel 4 pot choice (80% of 5 series sales are now the 520d) making it incredibly hard to find a decent petrol model. Even the 528i is now fitted with a fiendishly complex direct injection 4 pot turbo.
The moral of this story? Take advantage while you can and buy yourself one of these bargains, I did over 10k miles in my Subaru and it cost me £250 in total (pads, discs, MoT and a service) in that time while being faultlessly reliable. In the not too distant future Sheds will be either dull or have the ability to write themselves off with one seemingly minor electrical fault so off you go and scour those new and improved PH classifieds now!
Everyone on here is familiar with SOTW, so by process of extrapolation I have decided that 'Shedanomics' is spending about £1k on something presentable and enjoyable, to be run carefully, but not to the extent that you leave the oil in the sump for 30k miles and treat gaffer tape as an acceptable substitute for bodywork.
The reason for this post is that I've just spent a fraction over £1k on a Honda CRV as my annual 'Jap 4x4 to get me through the snow' and it's absolutely brilliant. Everything works, it has FSH, 100k miles, last owner for 8 years, plenty of T&T and most importantly, to a non car person it looks very smart and worth a lot more than I paid. Last year I bought a Forrester and that was the same and a quick browse through the classifieds will turn up dozens of suitable candidates - E39 5 series, VW Passats, Audi A4s, Merc C class, Subaru Legacies and loads of older stuff too.
In the past cheap cars have had carburettors, no aircon, rust and assorted design faults as well as a tendency not to start at that vital moment when you really need them to. Now though, there's tonnes of late '90s stuff with all the important gadgets and toys which would make a suitable daily driver for almost anyone.
So why is this a golden age? Well as time progresses these late '90s and early '00s cars will gradually leave the roads and we will be left with mid to late '00s cars in this price bracket. That means CO2 based tax (the wrong side of £450 a year for a lot of stuff, especially if you want an auto) and massive complexity. Cars now have DPFs, DMFs, various other TLAs as well as injectors, pumps and turbos on what will become the ubiquitous diesel 4 pot choice (80% of 5 series sales are now the 520d) making it incredibly hard to find a decent petrol model. Even the 528i is now fitted with a fiendishly complex direct injection 4 pot turbo.
The moral of this story? Take advantage while you can and buy yourself one of these bargains, I did over 10k miles in my Subaru and it cost me £250 in total (pads, discs, MoT and a service) in that time while being faultlessly reliable. In the not too distant future Sheds will be either dull or have the ability to write themselves off with one seemingly minor electrical fault so off you go and scour those new and improved PH classifieds now!
jamiebae said:
, I did over 10k miles in my Subaru and it cost me £250 in total (pads, discs, MoT and a service) in that time while being faultlessly reliable. In the not too distant future Sheds will be either dull or have the ability to write themselves off with one seemingly minor electrical fault so off you go and scour those new and improved PH classifieds now!
I really agree about the minor electrical fault.Modern cars are going to be completely unrepairable with all the ECU and other techy bits. Simply beyond the spanner brigade. Technicians rule OK.
Cars will be scrapped for the sake of a simple fault.
The cost of identifying the fault will be horrendous.
Gather ye rosebuds whilst ye may.
Reliable sheds which can be kept going when gremlins strike will be gone in 5 years.
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Ozzie Osmond said:
Yes.
Joe public has become so determined to "save fuel" that he's not thinking about the total costs of running a car.
"I'm thinking of buying a new car for £15,000 to save 5 mpg over my 10,000 miles a year..."
[Yes kids, that's an annual fuel saving of only c.£500]
I concur, and am fJoe public has become so determined to "save fuel" that he's not thinking about the total costs of running a car.
"I'm thinking of buying a new car for £15,000 to save 5 mpg over my 10,000 miles a year..."
[Yes kids, that's an annual fuel saving of only c.£500]
king sick of trying to explain this.jamiebae said:
The reason for this post is that I've just spent a fraction over £1k on a Honda CRV as my annual 'Jap 4x4 to get me through the snow' and it's absolutely brilliant. Everything works,
Did you check the centre diff? They're notorious for not working on older models (as they're hardly ever called on to work in practice) in which case you've bought a 4x2. 
I do agree with you, although it's not something I would do. The new MOT rules will render many "hi-tech" cars economic write-offs well before their time.
Aren't most of the late 00 cars self diagnosing? a quick hook up to the computer will find the problem and sometime in the future anyone with a laptop will be able to do it..
But yes, we will only be choosing between one eurobox and another slightly less interesting headlight configuration. Lets start filling barns now.
But yes, we will only be choosing between one eurobox and another slightly less interesting headlight configuration. Lets start filling barns now.
Yes. couple of years ago I bought a cavalier, dark green, 2.0ltr CD model, £100 taxed and MOT'd, ran it for 6 months untill it just looked too rough and weighed it in getting £30 odd back and chopping what was left of the tax. Great car, me and a mate (who had a shed proton) wrecked them, round fields off road, running things over, just cheap motoring, couldnt kill them, one car I do actually miss in a strange way.
Its cheap, not quite what your getting at but was a straight reasonable but older car in which everything worked!
Its cheap, not quite what your getting at but was a straight reasonable but older car in which everything worked!
Edited by midgeman on Wednesday 9th November 22:00
That's got to win an award for the most sense spoken in an OP, surely! 
E8 - they DO self-diagnose, but that's only because (a) there's so much to go wrong now; and (b) the ECUs are clever enough to disguise one fault by compensating in 3 other areas and making it look/feel like a completely different fault.
Oh...and the OBD-II diagnostics doesn't tell you everything - case in point on the wife's Golf this week - some emissions-related valve (NOT EGR or PCV, so this is yet another new thing they've shoved in there to make the engine eat even more of it's own st) has failed, but the fault-code gave a generic response that the Dealer Manual gives 4 options for. So it still needed a reasonably skilled techy to go and poke-around see what was wrong...
E8 - they DO self-diagnose, but that's only because (a) there's so much to go wrong now; and (b) the ECUs are clever enough to disguise one fault by compensating in 3 other areas and making it look/feel like a completely different fault.
Oh...and the OBD-II diagnostics doesn't tell you everything - case in point on the wife's Golf this week - some emissions-related valve (NOT EGR or PCV, so this is yet another new thing they've shoved in there to make the engine eat even more of it's own s
t) has failed, but the fault-code gave a generic response that the Dealer Manual gives 4 options for. So it still needed a reasonably skilled techy to go and poke-around see what was wrong...I think the OP makes some *very* valid points. Especially comparing used car prices in the UK with the rest of Europe. Looks like we have to pay about at least twice as much for something comparable in LHD (and it is still worth it most of the time). Just look at the gems in the mighty Barge threads....
I'm not as pessimistic wrt 2000' and onwards stuff though. At the moment, it looks like a minor fault will kill older cars from that time due to repair costs. But remember how expensive e.g. HID burners or PD injectors where just a few years ago? It is not bad at all now, and I think when the masses of 'complicated' cars new now will be ~ 10 and starting to fail in large numbers, there will be cheap parts available -- at least for the most common models. Just to big a market for parts sellers to ignore.
I'm not as pessimistic wrt 2000' and onwards stuff though. At the moment, it looks like a minor fault will kill older cars from that time due to repair costs. But remember how expensive e.g. HID burners or PD injectors where just a few years ago? It is not bad at all now, and I think when the masses of 'complicated' cars new now will be ~ 10 and starting to fail in large numbers, there will be cheap parts available -- at least for the most common models. Just to big a market for parts sellers to ignore.
I've been a fan of bangernomics, and shedanomics, having had various mk3 astras, and mk2 cavaliers, along with a 350 quid 51 reg volvo S40 sport (it was st but never lost a penny)
But recently I decided that I had to have a "grown up car" but my capex of £4700, was justified based on some fairly extensive calculations which helped me derive a cost per mile over the next 5 years, of the purchase vs the shedanomics alternative.
Wifey has a 1.8 Cavalier 8V with a Carb (and a mk1 mx5), and quite frankly, I would have bought another 1.8 or a later V6 (always wanted one), for approx £700 (for a nice one) . I factored in my 18K miles and compared it to numerous large diesels, and finally decided that I'd get a 2.5 year payback on £5K if I bought a 2.2 honda accord diesel. I know my sums were meaningless, in that I could have bought a 306 diesel for 700 quid with 3 years of life left on it, but I just wanted something with leather, and so I fudged the figures.
t but never lost a penny)But recently I decided that I had to have a "grown up car" but my capex of £4700, was justified based on some fairly extensive calculations which helped me derive a cost per mile over the next 5 years, of the purchase vs the shedanomics alternative.
Wifey has a 1.8 Cavalier 8V with a Carb (and a mk1 mx5), and quite frankly, I would have bought another 1.8 or a later V6 (always wanted one), for approx £700 (for a nice one) . I factored in my 18K miles and compared it to numerous large diesels, and finally decided that I'd get a 2.5 year payback on £5K if I bought a 2.2 honda accord diesel. I know my sums were meaningless, in that I could have bought a 306 diesel for 700 quid with 3 years of life left on it, but I just wanted something with leather, and so I fudged the figures.
Absolutely bloody spot on. We really are in a sweet spot if you think about it - our sheds are out of the Eighties with underpowered, underspecced wallowy crap, and there are still many good healthy ones to be had before the Noughties with EU restrictions leading to excessive complexity, and downsizing this and eco-friendly that.
Pretty much perfect, really - we can only hope that the sheds of today are so good that they'll live on, and still be around and usable ten or more years from now!
ETA - New POD, while your logic may be completely sound and your motives understandable, I rather subscribe more to the "fk it, I want a V8" school of thought.. 
Pretty much perfect, really - we can only hope that the sheds of today are so good that they'll live on, and still be around and usable ten or more years from now!
ETA - New POD, while your logic may be completely sound and your motives understandable, I rather subscribe more to the "f
k it, I want a V8" school of thought.. Edited by McSam on Wednesday 9th November 22:38
Many of the bargain barges many PHers lust after are even more complicated than these supposedly unfixable sheds 
Diagnostic tools are getting cheaper all the time, a code reader costs less than a half decent socket set. DPFs can be removed and it will still pass the MOT (or you could just buy a petrol car), a dual mass flywheel can often be replaced with a single mass one (although some are being fitted to new cars again, apparently) or if they do need replacing it is unlikely to need doing again for a long time. I've had to fix some of the cars without the rocket surgery degree luddites would tell you I need.
This is the same nonsense that went around when carbs were replaced with fuel injection, a thing that nobody understands, apparently.
Diagnostic tools are getting cheaper all the time, a code reader costs less than a half decent socket set. DPFs can be removed and it will still pass the MOT (or you could just buy a petrol car), a dual mass flywheel can often be replaced with a single mass one (although some are being fitted to new cars again, apparently) or if they do need replacing it is unlikely to need doing again for a long time. I've had to fix some of the cars without the rocket surgery degree luddites would tell you I need.
This is the same nonsense that went around when carbs were replaced with fuel injection, a thing that nobody understands, apparently.
I think so - perhaps it was slightly better pre-scrappage. Such a cynical, wasteful scheme now we're all told austerity is the future.
But having run a '97 BMW 328i touring for nearly 2 years, I'm inclined to agree by and large. Enough performance, all the gadgets that make cars safe ,enjoyable and comfortable, and none of the really nightmareish new failure points of mid-00's cars. And it gets 31mpg and costs £215 to tax for the year.
For £700 and a bit of maintenence, who could want more?
Looking around, there's something for everyone for a grand - so long as you don't want something diesel that is!
But having run a '97 BMW 328i touring for nearly 2 years, I'm inclined to agree by and large. Enough performance, all the gadgets that make cars safe ,enjoyable and comfortable, and none of the really nightmareish new failure points of mid-00's cars. And it gets 31mpg and costs £215 to tax for the year.
For £700 and a bit of maintenence, who could want more?
Looking around, there's something for everyone for a grand - so long as you don't want something diesel that is!
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